10-Minute Mondays: The Power of Breathwork for Mindful Drinking
Welcome to Journey to the Sunnyside, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and of course, your own mindful drinking journey. This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform. And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial. I'm your host, Mike Hardinbrook, published author, neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, and welcome back to another one of these ten minute Mondays here on Journey to the Sunnyside. I'm Mike Hardinbrook. And today we're going to talk about a topic that's deeply personal to me because it's been so impactful in my life. And that is the power of breath work. And if you've never done breath work before you switch this off and say, Hey, this isn't for me.
Speaker 2:Guess what? I felt the same way. So maybe just take a few minutes to hear me out. Here are the benefits. Here's some simple ways that you can use breath work anywhere, anytime that's going to support your habit change.
Speaker 2:It's going to improve your long term health. And it's really simple and accessible, and this directly supports habit change and mindful drinking. So first let's talk about the benefits of breath work as it relates to mindful drinking and the subject matter that we're always talking about here at Journey to the Sunnyside and everyone that is trying to change their relationship and their intake around alcohol. And the first is to talk about my own experience. I've used this tool both in the moment when I am going to react to a certain stressor to a craving or something like that, But also I'll do this passively.
Speaker 2:So if I just wake up and start making this part of my daily routine in the morning, it sets me up for an even keel throughout the day. And the reason is, is that the breath actually directly influences our nervous system. This is the system that helps us stay calm. It's going to help us stay focused during moments of cravings during stress. And so number one, it reduces our impulsive reactions.
Speaker 2:So it allows us to have a little bit more space to make conscious choices instead of being so reactionary as it was in my own personal experience. It also is going to create a more natural calm. Like I said, that even keel, and you're almost getting high on your own supply and it's going to help us manage stresses in social situations in high stress moments at work. And the third part about that is that I touched on in the opening is that this is an accessible tool. This is not something that you have to go to somebody, set an appointment.
Speaker 2:You can use this pretty much anytime, anywhere, whether you're at work or on the go. So by incorporating breath work into our routine, we can get a reliable method to ground ourselves, to make thoughtful choices and stay more on track when it comes to our mindful drinking goals. And so now let's move on beyond the mindful drinking connection and move more into talking about the long term health and mental wellness benefits of breath work, because it goes far beyond just what we're doing here. And so now I'm going give you a list of 10 reasons why you should be doing breath work. Not going go into detail of these, but I'm just going to fire them off to get you motivated to actually give this a try.
Speaker 2:So number one, reduces stress. Number two, lowers blood pressure. Number three boosts energy and immunity. Number four, it manages pain. Number five improves sleep.
Speaker 2:Number six enhances mood and reduces depression. Number seven improves athletic performance. Number eight increases focus. Number nine supports addiction recovery and number 10 promotes self exploration. So breath work isn't just useful.
Speaker 2:What we're talking about here at Sunnyside, it's also beyond in the moment. It offers long term health benefits that support physical, mental, and emotional well-being. So now let's talk about actual breath work itself. So when we're breathing, we are breathing unconsciously. And usually what happens in our everyday stressful life is that we start to take breaths unconsciously shallower and shallower, and they tend to be in our chest.
Speaker 2:And this can actually build up stress in a lot of other things that lead to consequences. Now, when we bring consciousness to our breath and we do diaphragmatic breathing or belly breathing, that's going to release all these great benefits that I'm talking about. And so the first step is bringing awareness or consciousness to our breath. The next step we're going to talk about is there are two types of breathwork techniques. One is activating.
Speaker 2:The other is relaxing. So activating breathwork. One example, which is very popular these days, and one that I practice very often is the Wim Hof method. And this stimulates both the mind and the body and increases alertness and energy. Sometimes I like to say it's like a light switch.
Speaker 2:If I'm feeling like I didn't get enough sleep and I'm really tired and I'm brain dead. And a lot of times before I do an interview or I do one of these, and I'm feeling in that mode, I will go do three rounds of Wim Hof and I feel so much more clear and ready to present. So it's activating in that way, but it also does bring a level of calmness as well. And then we have the relaxing breath work, which is basically the opposite of what we just talked about with the activating. These are more popular modes of breath work.
Speaker 2:You may have tried them. You may even done some of them in a yoga or a meditation class. One that we're going to talk about today that Doctor. Andrew Huberman has made more popular and also has a lot of research backing it called the physiological side. And so today we're going to talk about three simple breathwork techniques and the ones that I've chosen, I purposely chose because there are a lot of different breathwork techniques with different outcomes and goals.
Speaker 2:I urge you to go research some of those, but the ones that I chose today are very easy to do that you can do anywhere, and they're going to help with relaxation and focus and all the benefits that I talked about before. So number one is the four, eight breathing. So this is very simple. You can sit there, you can lay down. It doesn't matter whatever you feel more comfortable with.
Speaker 2:And you really want to stop, close your eyes, and you want to breathe in through your nose for four seconds and make sure that you give a lot of intention that this is diaphragmatic breathing in your belly. So start in your belly expanding and then into your chest. So the rhythm is four in through the nose. So you'll count to four through the nose, in through the belly. And then once you get to the top of the inhale, you want to gently exhale for a count of eight.
Speaker 2:And I'm not a meditation, yoga, breath work instructor. And so I'm not going to do where you have to listen to me breathe through the microphone. I think you get it. It's simple enough. Breathe in through the nose, nice and slow, give intention to your breath, breathe into the belly.
Speaker 2:Once you get to four exhale for a slow count of eight as your belly softens. So you can do this one to five minutes. The longer that you do it, the more results, the more relaxation that you'll get, but you can do it for as short as a minute and still get benefits. And then the next one we're going to talk about is box breathing. Box breathing creates balance rhythm, helps improve focus.
Speaker 2:And you may have heard of this because it's a very popular and very proven as a breath work technique. And so basically I want you to imagine a line for each of these segments. We're going to do segments of four seconds. So I do a line that basically will be drawing a box for each segment. So remember, sit down or lay down.
Speaker 2:You want to be diaphragmatic breathing through your belly, give consciousness to your breath. So the first one is you want to inhale through your nose for four seconds, expanding your belly. Then you want to hold your breath for four seconds. And that would be another line being drawn as a box. Then you want to exhale for four seconds, releasing that air naturally.
Speaker 2:You don't want to push it out. And then that would be another line for the box. And then we're going to close the last line of the box by holding again for four seconds. And then you are going to start that all over again. And you would repeat this cycle for a few minutes.
Speaker 2:And this is a technique that's used by all kinds of high stress individuals, athletes, first responders to stay calm under pressure. And it's an excellent tool for helping to ground yourself and create mental clarity. And then the last one is what I mentioned before the physiological sigh. So this is a quick and effective way to reduce your stress and anxiety, and it involves a double inhale followed by an extended exhale. So this is a really simple one that you can do, and you really don't even have to do it beyond one, two, or three.
Speaker 2:So one is effective, but you can do it up to three different times. And that is basically taking a deep inhale through your nose, filling your belly, again, diaphragmatic breathing. And then before you get to the very top of your inhale, take one more sip through your nose. So you go, and that's basically how it's done. And this technique gives you immediate relaxation and it's really high quality relaxation.
Speaker 2:And the research that they have behind this is that it offloads carbon dioxide efficiently, which then calms the nervous system almost instantly. And again, of these use this anytime for quick stress relief. Okay. I'm going to end it there. And these are three techniques that are easy for anybody just getting started with breath work to get some real results.
Speaker 2:If you want to go more in-depth or try something more advanced, of course, go do your own research. One that I can speak from personal experience and that I practice regularly is with the Wim Hof method. And the reason that I mentioned that one is that it has a really great app that's simple to download and use, and it's free to try no affiliation, but they do have more advanced features that it's paid. I think it's like $4.99 a month or something like that. But if you want to give it a try, it's absolutely free.
Speaker 2:And that's basically doing really hyperventilated rounds of 20 to 30 breaths followed by a long retention of your breath. And then you repeat that process. It has been a light switch when I need energy, when I need focus, and I'm just feeling off my game. But it also sets me up for the day when I'm feeling good in the morning and I do a few rounds, I just feel like a million bucks going into my day. So I hope this was helpful.
Speaker 2:And as always, I'd love to hear from you. Mike@Sunnyside.co. Send that feedback. If you want an episode that you'd like me to talk about, please send a suggestion. And I hope you have an amazing week, and cheers to your mindful drinking journey.
Speaker 1:This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform, having helped hundreds of thousands of people cut out more than 13,000,000 drinks since 2020. And in fact, an independent study showed that Sunnyside reduced alcohol consumption by an average of 30% in ninety days. And as one of our members shared, Sunnyside helps me stay mindful of my drinking habits. It's not super restrictive. So if I'm craving a glass of wine with dinner, I just track it and I move on with my week.
Speaker 1:If you could benefit from drinking a bit less and being more mindful of when and how much you drink, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial. You'll get access to everything that we offer, including tracking and planning tools, coaching from our experts, a vibrant community of people just like you, and the motivation and advice to stay on track with your health goals, all with no pressure to quit. That's Sunnyside.co.
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